October 7, 2006
Many think texting is safer, more fun than face-to-face
Among the more startling discoveries by experts tracking the text messaging trend is that young people feel they're presenting a more authentic self when they hide behind an electronic device. Redding reports.
"A growing number of high school and college students who say they prefer electronic methods of communication for their speed and brevity as well as for the sense of control and security they can provide.
Joining this group are technology workers who prefer orderly e-mails to chats with colleagues, because, likewise, they fear the random responses that conversations bring. Psychologists say both groups are also part of a new generation of patients who do better with e-therapy -- counseling via e-mail -- than personal encounters in an office setting.
... The Silicon Valley Cultures Project - a long-term ethnographic study of the cultures living and working in the hi-tech communities of Silicon Valley, now entering its fourteenth year - examines how the work of Silicon Valley affects people's lives and includes an intensive study of 14 families, among other projects.
"I think they're composing an identity that they're comfortable presenting to other people," Dr. J.A. English-Lueck said. "You are in more control when you're doing the texting and instant messaging than when you're in a group of people talking at once, with confusing messages that you have to unravel. In a group you're not presenting the real you, you're just reacting."
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